Christmas Nail Art

Hello, everyone! I'm still in a Christmas lull, so this will be a short post. This is the mani I did yesterday for Christmas - I couldn't decide which Christmas nail art to do, so I did a little of everything. I'm not going to list everything I used, because that would be a long and boring list, but I did use my Nubar nail art pens a lot. Merry belated Christmas, and happy Boxing Day if you celebrate it!

Candy Cane Nails

Hello there! I've had this mani on since Tuesday night, but I didn't get around to posting it until now because of doctor appointments and social stuff and such. I also had a really good haul Wednesday...maybe I'll post about that later (flakies!). Anyway, I'm posting this on my phone again, so there won't be any text after the photo. I decided to do a candy cane mani, and I used Wet 'n' Wild White Creme as a base and my red Nubar nail art pen (I used the striper end) for the stripes. For some reason, it chipped more quickly and severely than most of my manicures do...I tried a new base coat, so I'm hoping that wasn't what caused it. :/ Merry Christmas!

SinfulColors Holiday 2011 - Swatches & Review

Good morning! I took my last final this morning for my political science class, and now I'm done! My mom's not going to be here until this afternoon because of work, though, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post the SinfulColors holiday collection that I swatched Saturday. The collection is made up of five repromoted colors and two stripers. Although none of the polishes are new, they're all new to me, so I was pretty excited to try them out, especially with all the good things I've heard about Daddy's Girl. I do have to apologize, though - my nails were really short to begin with, and then my pinky nail broke halfway through swatching, so the last half only have three fingers. Sorry!

 sunlight

shade

Sugar Sugar, described by the SinfulColors press release as "a candy cane, red-hot tint," is just that - I love the color, and the glowy quality reminds me of my favorite red shimmer, Dr.'s Remedy Revive Ruby Red. The only thing I didn't like was the formula, which in combination with the brush was very hard to control, and as you can see, I ended up getting some bubbles. With a little more care, though I don't think this would happen. I used two coats.

 sunlight

shade

I decided to show Flower Girl next because I used it on top of Sugar Sugar. It's a bronze-gold color that I haven't seen in a striper before, which is really nice - I always like to find something unique. It was also really opaque, which is essential in a striper because it's more of a pain (for me, at least) to go over stripes twice. It's worth noting that the brushes on these stripers are thicker than Kiss or Nubar, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing; after all, it can be good to have some variety.

 sunlight

shade

Next, we have Midnight Blue, "a bold, bright twist on navy," or what I'd call a vivid, medium-blue shimmer. This polish kind of reminds me of Sally Hansen Blue It, but brighter and less metallic. I used two coats with this as well, but was more careful and only got a couple bubbles, though it was still a bit of a pain to apply. I like Midnight Blue, but I don't think it's a must-have.

 sunlight

shade

This is the second striper, Fashionista. It's a silver glitter, and to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with this one. The base was thicker than I like in stripers, and the glitter wasn't as dense as I had hoped it would be. However, if this is your thing, I would definitely recommend it - after all, it's cheap and easy to work with.

 sunlight

Sorry I don't have a shaded photo for this one - I didn't realize until I uploaded them that all the ones I took were a little blurry, so I decided not to include one. Anyway, Last Chance is a dark evergreen creme that seems to me like a non-jelly version of Nars Zulu. As I've never been a huge fan of Zulu (I don't tend to love vampy polishes), I'm perfectly happy with Last Chance. I used two coats.

 sunlight

shade

As you can see, Out of this World is a whitish silver, and I have to say, I'm not a fan of this one. It wasn't quite opaque with the three coats I used, and it's not really a color I would wear on its own. I think it might be good for layering, though...I'll have to try that sometime.

 sunlight

shade

Daddy's Girl, "a deep purple with a drizzle of shimmer and glitter," is by far my favorite of these. It's a gorgeous purple jelly with gold glitter, and I love it. It's not quite opaque with three coats, but it's more opaque than it looks in my first picture. I'm not sure why I didn't buy this one before...it's a vivid purple; what was I thinking?!

If you'd like to buy any of these for yourself, you can find them for $1.99 at mass retailers like Walgreens.

And with that, I need to go pack...I hope you're all having a great week, and don't forget to read my NO H8 post!

These products were provided to me by the manufacturer for honest review.

NO H8

Hello there! I'm almost done with finals, so I finally have time to update my blog. I'm actually writing this on my phone, as I'm currently watching Frost-Nixon with my wonderful friend Jesse Doggendorf. As it happens, it's Jesse's nails that I'll be showing you today - he's been wanting me to do his thumbnails in some sort of rainbow design for some time now, and I finally did. I used OPI Red My Fortune Cookie, Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, Ulta Sun-Sunsational, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, and China Glaze Grape Pop for the "rainbow," Wet 'n' Wild White Creme as the base, and my black Nubar nail art pen for the letters.

 

Aren't his nails adorable? I think they turned out really well! In fact, I may even have to do the same thing on my own nails some time. I'm even getting better at painting on really short nails, as opposed to painting all over the fingers like I did last time I did Jesse's nails (that time, it was Harry Potter). Anyway, that's all I have for today - have a great weekend!

China Glaze Colours From the Capitol

The official swatches for the Hunger Games-inspired collection from China Glaze - I can't wait for these!

Sinful Colors Holiday 2011: Wish (PR)

Bells are jingling, snow is glistening and merry tunes abound: It's the season of shimmer (aka: the holidays) and glamour, of course. And your nails deserve a little gift and loving too. Welcome the SinfulColors holiday 2011 collection, Wish, which delights and excites. The collection takes classic colors - like red, green, silver and blue - and kicks them up a notch to be fashion-forward and festive to ring in 2012.

The complete SinfulColors Wish collection for holiday 2011 includes:

Five gem-inspired shades of polish:

SUGAR SUGAR: a candy cane, red-hot tint

MIDNIGHT BLUE: a bold, bright twist on navy

LAST CHANCE: an emerald with depth and allure

DADDY'S GIRL: a deep purple with a drizzle of shimmer and glitter

OUT OF THIS WORLD: a perfect silver with swirls of glimmer

Two metallic shades of nail art:

FLOWER GIRL: a bronzy gold with tons of sparkle

FASHIONISTA: a glitter-laden pewter

SinfulColors surpasses the masses with more than 150 amazing shades of nail polish, including the above-mentioned shades. All hues are available for $1.99 at major drug and mass-market stores nationwide, by calling 1-800-448-0763 or online at www.walgreens.com.  

China Glaze Eye Candy Swatches & Review

Hello there! Sorry it took me so long to get these swatches up, and even now, they're not especially good because the sun hasn't come out for long enough for me to swatch a whole collection a while. Also, I've been working on end-of-semester papers and presentations and studying for finals, so that's been taking up a huge chunk of my time - actually, who am I kidding? Pretty much all I do these days is study. Anyway, here's Eye Candy, the China Glaze winter collection inspired by Marilyn Monroe. For consistency, I used three coats without top coat for all the polishes, and took all the pictures with flash.

Lorelei's Tiara is the first polish I swatched. It's got silver microglitter and round blue glitter in a clear base. I like this one more than I expected to, honestly - I swatched all the polishes matte, shiny, and over black on an index card, and I really liked this one matte as well. I'll have to do a full manicure with it soon, especially as it's so appropriate for winter! (It flurried today, and I got very excited!)

Love Marilyn is similar in composition to Lorelei's Tiara, though different in color - it has red microglitter and round silver glitter. I don't like this one quite as much as Lorelei's Tiara, perhaps because my high school's colors were red and silver, but it's still glamorous, and I can definitely see Marilyn Monroe being a fan.

Blonde Bombshell was probably the polish out of the collection that surprised me most. Not only does it have gold microglitter and round gold glitter, it also has tiny orange-gold bar glitter! I thought this was clever of China Glaze considering the name of the polish (bar glitter = hair), and I also think it adds an extra bit of warmth to the polish, even if it's hard to detect - I don't think you can see the bar glitter at all in the photo, and it was hard to see when I applied it. I don't think I would have noticed it all if I hadn't swatched each color over black on a notecard, as I mentioned earlier. At any rate, I've definitely fallen for Blonde Bombshell.

Material Girl is another polish that I didn't completely capture in this photo. It has rose microglitter, round rose glitter, and slightly larger and darker rose holo hex glitter. All of this makes for a dazzling effect that I enjoyed more than I thought I would - I'm not a huge fan of pink in its own right, but I do like this one quite a lot.

I apologize - the photo of Marry a Millionaire is a little more not-good than the rest for some reason. Marry a Millionaire is comprised of purple microglitter and green bar glitter - again, there goes China Glaze being clever! I must say, I appreciate that much more than OPI trying to be funny with names...those usually just strike me as odd. Anyway, Marry a Millionaire is not only a clever polish, but a very pretty one. I actually wore this as a full manicure (I used four coats for security when I did that, but the swatch is still just three coats without top coat) and got several compliments, as I'm sure I will when I wear the other Eye Candy polishes.

Finally, we have Some Like It Haute, which is made up of charcoal microglitter and round, silver holo glitter. I really like this one as well, and I can definitely see myself wearing it, especially around New Year's. It also was one of the more well-covering of the Eye Candy polishes, which is always nice.

Overall, I really don't have anything bad to say about Eye Candy or any of the polishes in it. One thing I particularly appreciate is that the polishes are fairly easy to apply for glitters - after all, I'm going to slave to take glitter off; I don't want to slave to put it on as well! You can see that a few pieces of glitter did escape and run off onto my fingers, but I felt that these were much easier to apply than the OPI glitters. All in all, I would definitely recommend any one of these!

All polishes except Lorelei's Tiara, which I purchase myself, were provided by China Glaze for me to review.

Day 31: Re-create Your Favorite Challenge

Hello, and happy December! Today is not only the first day of a brand new month, but the last day of the 31 day challenge for me and the other bloggers that did it this month. While I enjoyed the challenge, I have to say that I'm glad to have the stress of having to change my nails every day relieved, especially with my first college finals coming up sooner than seems quite possible. Anyway, I had several ideas as to what I might do for today...and all of them flew out the window when I got a swap package today that I'd been expecting. It contained NYX Gilded Glitter, which I've been lemming for ages, so of course I had to use it! I decided to recreate day 17, because that was glitter day. I used one coat of Gilded Glitter over three luscious coats of Revlon Royal.

 artificial light

artificial light

*sigh* I'm so thrilled with this. I can't wait to use it in a plethora of new layering combinations that have now been opened up to me - and with the challenge over, I can do whatever strikes me whenever it strikes me! I'm excited to try China Glaze Eye Candy, too - I just don't know when I'll have the time! Hopefully sometime this weekend...

Don't forget to check out the last challenge day on the other blogs!

Aly Loves Lacquer
Manicure Addict
Dees Polish Endeavours
Bright Lights, Big Color
Life and Polish